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| Parks are good for us – so why are they being neglected? | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Shortly before Christmas, the nine rangers who look after the parks and green spaces of Brighton and Hove were sent a text message from their bosses: six will lose their jobs under the Labour council’s austerity budget, a bonfire not of bureaucrats but of guardians of our green spaces. | Shortly before Christmas, the nine rangers who look after the parks and green spaces of Brighton and Hove were sent a text message from their bosses: six will lose their jobs under the Labour council’s austerity budget, a bonfire not of bureaucrats but of guardians of our green spaces. |
| Most of us imagine a squadron of Percy the Park Keepers if invited to consider “countryside managers”. In fact, this was a burgeoning profession. But conservation, keeping urban greenery safe and accessible, maintaining rights of way and promoting the outdoors are now considered inessential next to other duties of local government. | Most of us imagine a squadron of Percy the Park Keepers if invited to consider “countryside managers”. In fact, this was a burgeoning profession. But conservation, keeping urban greenery safe and accessible, maintaining rights of way and promoting the outdoors are now considered inessential next to other duties of local government. |
| Sacking six rangers will save Brighton £175,000 a year, but will cost the city far more in the long run. Its rangers manage nearly 100 green spaces: they deploy sheep for “conservation grazing” on chalk grassland, which enables rare flowers and insects to flourish; they’ve recently organised volunteers to plant 100,000 native flowers and trees. | Sacking six rangers will save Brighton £175,000 a year, but will cost the city far more in the long run. Its rangers manage nearly 100 green spaces: they deploy sheep for “conservation grazing” on chalk grassland, which enables rare flowers and insects to flourish; they’ve recently organised volunteers to plant 100,000 native flowers and trees. |
| Related: Why green is good for you | Jay Griffiths | Related: Why green is good for you | Jay Griffiths |
| Picture this green space as a hospital. Would that hospital improve residents’ health if its doctors were sacked? This is not a far-fetched analogy but close to a literal truth: a forest of scientific papers shows how access to urban green spaces enhances mental and physical wellbeing – reducing blood pressure, regulating the stress hormone cortisol, increasing the attentiveness of children with ADHD. | Picture this green space as a hospital. Would that hospital improve residents’ health if its doctors were sacked? This is not a far-fetched analogy but close to a literal truth: a forest of scientific papers shows how access to urban green spaces enhances mental and physical wellbeing – reducing blood pressure, regulating the stress hormone cortisol, increasing the attentiveness of children with ADHD. |
| Remove rangers, and urban spaces become rubbish-strewn places, dominated by antisocial behaviour. If people don’t feel safe, they stop venturing out, and health benefits evaporate. Sometimes these benefits are very direct: this summer, Brighton’s rangers alerted the city’s housing department to a growing number of rough sleepers, who were then found accommodation. | Remove rangers, and urban spaces become rubbish-strewn places, dominated by antisocial behaviour. If people don’t feel safe, they stop venturing out, and health benefits evaporate. Sometimes these benefits are very direct: this summer, Brighton’s rangers alerted the city’s housing department to a growing number of rough sleepers, who were then found accommodation. |
| Environmental illiteracy reigns and in that regard Ian Rotherham, professor of environmental geography at Sheffield Hallam University, highlights the loss of expertise resulting from Sheffield’s 25-year roads contract with private contractor Amey, which is resulting in the disastrous destruction of mature street trees across the city. Green spaces, and their champions, are a crucial part of public health. We forget that at our peril. | Environmental illiteracy reigns and in that regard Ian Rotherham, professor of environmental geography at Sheffield Hallam University, highlights the loss of expertise resulting from Sheffield’s 25-year roads contract with private contractor Amey, which is resulting in the disastrous destruction of mature street trees across the city. Green spaces, and their champions, are a crucial part of public health. We forget that at our peril. |
| On his Ed | On his Ed |
| By rising to become chair of Norwich City football club, former shadow chancellor Ed Balls is living my dream. Like me, he was first taken to Carrow Road as a small boy and longed to play for his home team (but wasn’t quite good enough, as those pictures of him fouling hacks during Westminster kickabouts attest). | By rising to become chair of Norwich City football club, former shadow chancellor Ed Balls is living my dream. Like me, he was first taken to Carrow Road as a small boy and longed to play for his home team (but wasn’t quite good enough, as those pictures of him fouling hacks during Westminster kickabouts attest). |
| We both settled for season tickets in the moderately raucous Upper Barclay stand, and I periodically fantasise about squandering an enormous lottery win on a club still within touching distance of normality because it is owned not by billionaires but by mere millionaires (Delia Smith and her husband). So I understand why Balls wants to swap his seat for the chair. | We both settled for season tickets in the moderately raucous Upper Barclay stand, and I periodically fantasise about squandering an enormous lottery win on a club still within touching distance of normality because it is owned not by billionaires but by mere millionaires (Delia Smith and her husband). So I understand why Balls wants to swap his seat for the chair. |
| But I also worry. For having turned his passion into this unpaid job, he will now be scrutinised by that most irrational and ill-informed species: the football fan. Post-politics Balls will need every inch of his old thick skin. I wish him luck, for the sake of Norwich City, but also for those who dream. | But I also worry. For having turned his passion into this unpaid job, he will now be scrutinised by that most irrational and ill-informed species: the football fan. Post-politics Balls will need every inch of his old thick skin. I wish him luck, for the sake of Norwich City, but also for those who dream. |
| Fuel from yule | Fuel from yule |
| Tis the season to find Christmas trees dumped on kerbs, so congratulations to Harry Wallop, writer and London resident, who tweeted his haul from a forage through the leafy streets of Islington: 22 wooden bases from abandoned trees – enough to heat a small house for a couple of days via a wood burning stove. | Tis the season to find Christmas trees dumped on kerbs, so congratulations to Harry Wallop, writer and London resident, who tweeted his haul from a forage through the leafy streets of Islington: 22 wooden bases from abandoned trees – enough to heat a small house for a couple of days via a wood burning stove. |